Strategy Notes

[Velociryx]

**Disclaimer - These will almost assuredly undergo HUGE changes as the game continues to develop, however, things are getting robust enough to warrant an article on at least one aspect of the game, and that is loyalty control.

In your "toolbox" for controlling loyalty, you've essentially got four very different methodologies. Which one(s) you choose to use, and when, will, in large part, determine the success or failure of your enterprise.

The four "tools" are:

Festivals
Binding Chants
Bewitchings
Bread & Circuses

Each of these deserves some discussion in their own right, but also, some discussion of the metagame surrounding them.

The Festival (Your Best Friend in the Early Game)

First, to the obvious. Use what you must in the early game, in order to get your loyalty up to acceptable (operational) levels. If you can't recruit or build, then you need to use one of these to change that.

Sans modding, Festivals will be the only option you've got on turn 1, so get used to it. You're going to be making extensive use of Festivals for the early game.

That's not a bad thing, but you should understand that the smaller population of your province, the bigger the impact. Example: A festival in WestKeep or EastGate will average you about 6 points of Loyalty (for a flat fee of 500g), while the same Festival used in neighboring Micklenach will often net you 20+ Loyalty. The lesson here, obviously, is use festivals when you must on provinces of any size, but if you want bang for your buck, use them on the small fry (a greater portion of the population can attend, and thus, the party is more far reaching, which in turn, sees a greater impact to loyalty).

Bear in mind that you could easily focus exclusively on troops--both training and pressing), get yourself a big army and rely on Festivals exclusively to help keep loyalty up, then follow up with buildings a bit later. This might well be an ideal strategy for the Furies, who find themselves with a large number of relatively low population provinces in the north spur region. Once you've got an army big enough to capture one of them, then a "FesPress" would work like a charm. That is to say, press troops, take the morale hit, and then do a Festival, which will almost always give you more loyalty than you lost by pressing. The end result is that you keep growing your army, your small provinces have good loyalty, which helps add to your bottom line, and you can use the uptick in money to hold festivals in your core provinces to build their loyalty up (since it might be low from your prepping the army in the first place). And while Fury has the most abundant source of these small provinces around, every faction has at least some, so it's a viable strategy for all.



Binding Chant (The Hand of God)

The Binding Chant is really the mainstay methodology for getting loyalty up and keeping it there, and with good reason. It's the cheapest of the "loyalty boosters" to cast (60, vs. B&C's 100, or Bewitch's 150), and it comes with absolutely no side effects. Pretty attractive all told, and an opener that sees you build a temple will be a strong opening indeed, but bear in mind that ALL the spheres have some means of loyalty boosting (as described above), so if your strategy calls for using other spells in the Espionage or Magical spheres, then don't shy away from them as viable first builds! It all depends on what your strategy is.

Two Shrines, one built in each of your two "core" provinces, would allow for a Binding Chant every three turns, and that's not bad.

Used wisely, Binding Chants are effective against any province, but are generally best used on larger provinces that Festivals don't have much effect on. You get more bang for your buck that way.

Bewitch (That Mystical Touch)

Bewitch is an odd bird. Actually more effective (or potentially so) than Binding Chant, but with the drawback that no BP's or TP's are earned on the following turn, so it'll slow down your building program. It's the most expensive of the loyalty boosters, so think carefully before spending that kind of manna. It can go towards LOTS of other uses, not the least of which is blasting your opponent's armies to smithereens via lightning storm, but sometimes you need the loyalty, and if you do, this just might be the ticket!

It's probably best used on newly conquered territories. You'll not be building anything out of those anyway, so that strips out the major downside of this spell. The other downside is, of course, the cost, but there's really nothing to be done about that.

Bread & Circuses (Keeping the masses distracted)

This is a good effect. A little pricier than Binding Chant (100EP's vs. 60Influence), but where Binding Chant can produce next to no effect if your "rolls" are bad, B&C produces a constant +10 to loyalty. Every time you stage some games for your people, you KNOW the effect.

Of course, after the games your people are rowdy, and they may start tearing up the place (thus the chance for a riot, no matter your provincial loyalty), so it's like playing with fire. Since you can cast/use all of these multiple times on the same province, you can really screw yourself if you use this a bunch. BE CAREFUL!!!!

I have found this one to be most useful on core provinces once you've gotten their loyalty really high. Then, when you recruit troops, it doesn't put you in the danger (rebellion) zone, and you can safely use a B&C to undo most of the loyalty hit from hiring troops.

So...four different tools for controlling loyalty, and four "optimal uses" with the understanding that they'll all work in any circumstance, and it is that very feature which makes it possible to really focus in one one sphere (espionage, church, or mystic) and run with it, because there's enough overlapping functionality that you can mimick the most important functions from the other areas, and let's face it...nothing's more important that the loyalty of the provinces.

More coming soon.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Viable Opening Strategies for Each Faction ~ PDV1.0

The purpose of this document is to outline one possible methodology of playing each of the five Great Houses, in order to jumpstart your game. Note that these are by no means the only ways of playing it, but these openers are the ones that I’ve developed over the course of my testing, so here goes:

Fury
You start in pretty good shape as the Furies. Provinces are of above average size, and have fairly good starting loyalty, so you can train troops from the word go. Training six hundred infantry will give you a force of 1200 including your starting house guard, and this is generally sufficient to lay in a successful siege of a province.

You might be tempted to go for massive Trentare right off, but this is, I believe a mistake, and for the following reason:

Trentare will inevitably have low loyalty after you conquer her, and her population is such that Festivals (the only tool you’ve got in the early game) will be of limited effect, so conquering this province could saddle you with a costly province, both in terms of gold, and the possibility of rebellions. Best to wait until you’ve got Shrines up and running before you attempt such a conquest.

I would then, naturally turn my eye toward the North Spur region, and all those low pop, easy to control provinces. Yes, they build and train slowly, but they're also isolated, safe havens of income, and no one is likely to use Extortion against them, which means that once you raise their loyalty acceptably (easily done with Festivals in this region), it's pure profit for you.

To accomplish this, I would start with a conquest of Rook’s Roost, and take the “sell” option for their resource (since Rook’s Roost is the only place with the “Fuel” resource, you get an automatic monopoly position on it, and this will give you a big influx of per turn gold, even as it helps your rivals (marginally). Net gain for you, IMO, though a compelling argument could be made for keeping the extra BP’s for yourself, for the long term gain, when your North Spur provinces can produce stuff at a not unbearable rate.

Once the loyalty in your cores has recovered sufficiently, I’d actually open with Taverns as my first build, over Shrines. This is because it gives you access to both Bread & Circuses, and perhaps more importantly, to Extortion, which can be used against a high pop province, such as Trentare, WestKeep, or EastGate, to give you another influx of gold, which will go a long ways toward solving your major problem of the early game, and offset the fact that you’re building Shrines a bit later than your neighboring factions.

From there, a strike toward Brom looks fairly attractive, as it gives you another monopoly position (albeit one that does little but provide you gold in this build, as the “keep” option adds something to your troops that is not yet enabled, but you can always do with more gold, so it’s still an attractive option).

All that should see you in a pretty strong position to take on your rivals in the south.

Castillar
The House of Castillar is probably the strongest of the Great Houses in this build, thanks to their innate bonuses that give them more Influence, and the power of Binding Chant. In future iterations, this will be offset by additional spells and espionage options, such that the game resembles Magic: The Gathering after each expansion, where one “color” gains a temporary ascendancy with each expansion. So too will it be in the world of Candle’Bre, and right now, the Castillars are the House to beat.

With Castillar, my favorite opener is a quick strike toward Massetta to gain the Wool monopoly. Not because it helps you greatly (a slight reduction in troop maintenance at a time when you have relatively few troops), but because it’s cool and I like it. And Massetta is a good province in general, so I’m not “losing” anything by taking her on first.

Where builds are concerned, I’m again inclined to go with six hundred infantry, but this time to be followed by Shrines, to play to my natural strengths. A few well-placed intercessions to prevent a sneak attack by the Mourngryms should they come calling, and Binding Chants to help with Provincial Loyalty, and you’re all set.

Expansion to the southwest looks appealing, but a quick strike at Mourngrym could see you with one less rival and two of the best provinces of the game (more easily controlled, thanks to your Influence), so you really have a number of fantastic options here.

Mourngrym
Let’s see. You start with two of the arguably best provinces in the game. More money than everyone else. Mercantile provinces AND a bonus which gives you more gold, means that you can leech more money out of a captured province than anyone else…all in all, a strong position.

Plus, at present, you’re the only faction with “Family” events, and one that gives you a Great Leader, at that! The Leaders don’t do much at present (this one grants +10 to attack values of all the troops in his army), but that’s enough to give you an important edge in battle, meaning you’ll lose fewer troops on balance than whomever you’re fighting (excepting perhaps, for the Council, but more on them later).

So your position is quite strong, but this is a mixed blessing, because it’s offset by the fact that you start squarely “in the middle.” The point at which every other House in the game must eventually gravitate toward in order to secure enough provinces for a win.

Thus, you cannot tarry. Your strikes must be brutal and they must be quick.

You have two strong rivals nearest you, and each presents their own special challenges.

Essentially with Mourngrym, you have three options, and whichever you choose, you’ll need to adopt a slightly different approach.

The first option is standard expansion away from whichever direction your rivals take. In this case you’ll need the customary six hundred infantry, followed by the building of your choice (you don’t need Shrines as badly, because of your extra income, though it would be helpful, and the other buildings each come with their own advantages, so you can take your pick!)

The second and third options would be a quick strike toward one of your near neighbors, and we’ll deal with them each in turn, because they each present their own special challenges.

First, the Castillars. In order to counter the Intercessions they’ll undoubtedly toss in your way, you’ll need Sigils, and you’ll need them early. I would say even to forego an early attack to build Sigils first, and let your Manna build up. Once you’ve neutralized this threat, the Castillars have nothing innate about them that make them especially difficult to conquer, but without purgings, you’ll find them a really tough nut to crack.

Second, the Council of Seven (hereafter simply referred to as The Council). These guys are tough. They get defensive bonuses out the wazoo (even in enemy territory, but especially at home), where their defensive bonus is doubled AND they get an extra siege counter, for free.

If you go this route, you might want to consider Taverns first for both Extortion (not because you especially need the money, but in order to shut down their income, and limit their ability to produce troops), and Sabotage, which undoes their siege counter advantage. You can undo their defensive advantage with Zander, which puts you back on an even footing with them. If one of these pieces is missing, however, you’ll find it tough going against The Council. A compelling argument could be made for going Sigil first and using Lightning Storms to limit their troops in the same way that Extortion does, and if this is your preference, then by all means, have at it! My personal preference tends toward Taverns, but that’s just me.

The Council of Seven
These are your classic turtles. They can take a province and then hunker down on it, and you’ll have a devil of a time getting them back out. Their advantages make them strongest on their home turf, but they’re not without their advantage on YOUR turf, so you have to be somewhat careful when dealing with The Council.

Expansion wise, you have several juicy provinces south of you that are pretty much yours exclusively, and you might want to strongly consider heading off in that direction, however…your neighbors may target you for early destruction, before you get too entrenched, so your thought might be to do unto them what they could do unto you, and in that case, it pays to take a look at your near neighbors.

First, the Mourngryms. Lots of money and an enviable starting position (tho as the game grinds on, it becomes less and less enviable, for sure). A quick strike toward them would net you two of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the game, but would also advertise your intentions. If you head toward the center early, be prepared to fight LOTS of battles with your new neighbors (Castillar and The Mystics) because they’ll certainly be gunning for you in an attempt to stop you from controlling the whole of the loch region and running away with the game. Build wise, Taverns are good for you because they help undo Mourngrym’s chief advantage, and you’ll be wanting to do this if you’re heading off in his direction!

Ahhh, but The Mystics! They beckon, and in the early game, they are such a tempting target! Probably the weakest of the five Houses in this build (especially in the early game…less so later on). A strike against them won’t net you great provinces, but it will give you unfettered access to the entire east…not an inconsiderable advantage!

The Mystics
Poor, poor Mystics. They start with marginal provinces and low loyalty, but on the upside, they get a nice boost to Manna…even nicer than the boost that Castillar gets to Influence. You’ve just got to survive long enough to bring it to bear.

Now, keep in mind that the Mystics will be greatly strengthened in the next build, but for now, this is probably the most difficult faction to play well.

What I’ve found workable is a focus on early conquest (The Vales, generally, though isolated Elynthia is a good choice as well), followed by Sigils everywhere. With a focus on Sigils (and later, Taverns) you can keep enemy armies pruned with regular doses of Lightning Storms, and can Extort your way from rags to riches in relatively short order. Because your provinces are smallish, Festivals tend to be extremely effective on your lands, which can be seen as a boon to you in two ways, just as it is for the Furies.

Conquest wise, it would be advisable to stay clear of your rivals until you have a solid base of provinces. The last thing you want to do is have a stand up fight with The Council or a hungry Mourngrym (fortunately, he is a bit further away, and so, not an immediate threat), but The Council’s vaunted defensive advantages can be undone by some well placed Lightning Storms…dead troops don’t get defensive bonuses!

And that’s it for now. More to come!

-=Vel=-

[JustinSane]

Disclaimer: Velociryx knows what he's doing when it comes to strategy and is of course the game designer. I just like strategy games and have played the demo a lot over the last week. So anyone reading this, please don't think this is of comparable worth to Velociryx's advice . It's just an attempt to get some discussion going among people who have tried the demo and possibly start establishing some general Candle'Bre play theory.

Big Provinces vs. Little Provinces: A Tougher Decision Than You'd Think.

One of the biggest decisions facing a player at the beginning of the game is where to expand to. To a large extent this will dictate which buildings make sense to build, what opposing factions you'll clash with (and when, and where, and under what relative conditions), and how much income you'll have of each resource (money being most prominent, but also including mana, influence and espionage points). And each faction has expansion options that focus on high population provinces and options that focus on low population provinces.

That seems like it should be an easy decision - larger pop means more people to tax and quicker training and construction, so we want that, right? It is actually not that simple (which is a credit to the game design).

First, we need a brief digression on where gold comes from in Candle'Bre. There are three sources: Taxes, Goods and Extortion. Taxes are collected (if my math is correct) at the rate of 1 gold per 100 loyal citizens each turn (or tax revenue per turn= provincial loyalty*provincial population/10,000). Incomes from goods appears to be intrinsic to each province and roughly tracks with the sum of each type of good found in the province at what looks to be a ratio of 1.6 to 2.2 (though I haven't thoroughly tested that). Small provinces tend to have a lot more goods than large ones (Kell being a notable exception). I've really not tested extortion at all and it doesn't relate too strongly towards the question of large vs. small provinces, so we'll leave that aside.

An interesting thing about the formula for the tax revenue of a province is what happens when you plug a negative loyalty figure into the calculation of a high population province. It's really expensive. Loyalty control is in fact the biggest drawback to large population provinces. Festivals work much, much better in low population provinces than large population onces, as Velociryx explained in the first post of this thread. After being conquered, provinces commonly will have negative loyalty. Raising a high population province's loyalty to a decent level from a negative starting point through festivals is a long, painful, expensive proposition.

So efficient loyalty control in high population provinces depends primarily on Binding Chant (the mana and espionage options average .11 and .1 loyalty gain per resource spent compared to .2 for binding chant). Binding Chant requires influence, which means that if you want to conquer high pop provinces, you've either got to build shrines, build other structures and accept loyalty control about half as efficient, or accept either a long, costly climb in loyalty using festivals or a really long (though inexpensive) climb using natural loyalty regeneration (probably with a few rebellions along the way).

What is wrong with that last option? Well, 51 loyalty and 61 loyalty are the magic numbers needed to construct buildings and train troops, respectively. Buildings are needed to generate every resource other than gold, and troops are what expand your territory, so those are some pretty important things for a province to be doing. But both of those hurt your loyalty, by -20 per building and -4 per military unit. So even after you've recovered from low post-conquest loyalty, to maintain production you've got to constantly prop up provincial loyalty. With low pop provinces, this isn't much trouble - a festival will bump it up by tens of points and you're set for quite some time. High pop provinces are a lot less effected by festivals, and they train quicker - so continuous production means a larger continuous loyalty drain, which you are again probably going to need binding chant (or possibly bread and circuses) to overcome.

So, is the lesson here that higher population provinces are better, we just need to build shrines first to keep the loyalty high? Well, that is certainly a valid, powerful option. But it's not without its drawbacks also. Building a structure early, particularly in your starting provinces, is a serious commitment. It's going to cost several turns worth of income to pay for the building, then more turns worth of income to pay for festivals to recover from the -20 loyalty hit. During all those turns, you're not training infantry in that province.

So you're greatly delaying expansion - though for the right provinces, that in many cases can certainly be worth it. Trentare, for instance, can generate 584 gold/turn just off taxes alone at 100% loyalty. That's 1.67 times more than the Mystic's combined per turn starting income. That's a lot of gold. That's not the only option however.

Consider an empire that consists entirely of low pop provinces. Income is relatively low, but income from Goods substantially compensates for the smaller tax base. Loyalty is much more easily controlled through festivals, and there really isn't any need for influence for binding chant. It's much quicker and cheaper to get each newly conquered provinces' loyalty up to 51 so that they can start buildings, and then it's quicker and cheaper to overcome the -20 loyalty penalty per building and get loyalty up to 61, to start training troops. Once the province starts training troops, they'll train more slowly than a larger province, but it will be quite easy to keep training continually without having loyalty drop too far.

Not needing influence to keep everyone liking you opens up a very important option. Rather than needing shrines, you can build Sigils. A lightning storm costs 150 mana and on average clears 2.5 enemy units (an average of .0167 per mana point). A Sigil produces 10 mana/turn, so one way of looking at it is that it eliminates .167 enemy units each turn. That may not sound like much, but this costs nothing once the sigil is built, stacks with troop production, can be stored with no upkeep costs, and can be used on demand in any province at any time. Get several of those, and it's a considerable military advantage. And in a pinch, they can even be used to fix loyalty (such as in a newly conquered province), though generally building taverns alongside them and using Bread and Circuses will be a better option.

So each option has advantages and disadvantages: Large provinces will produce far more tax revenue and train troops much more quickly once fully developed, but almost force you to build shrines before you conquer them. Risking an attempt without doing so can lead to a major per turn hit to one's income if such a province has negative morale.

On the other hand, small provinces will produce markedly less tax revenue and train troops more slowly. But they can safely be conquered without building shrines first, can be stabilized efficiently with festivals, can more quickly begin construction on buildings, allow for sigils rather than shrines, and can begin troop production more quickly (another side benefit of festivals being more efficient). And income from goods will help make up for decreased tax revenue. All of the above factors combine into a significant early to mid game turn advantage that can allow for a strong push on an individual enemy faction that can be very tough to meet.

So which one is better, going for large provinces or for small ones? It seems pretty balanced - which is perfect .

[Velociryx]

An excellent post, and I think you've hit upon one of the critical choices in the early game...the overall "shape" of your expansion plan, and I'd say that you definitely need one, in order to excel at controlling the Basin, because if you go off half cocked and without a plan, you're liable to spend an inordinate amount of time idling, or needlessly waiting, when you could have had a more efficient run of the table by planning your next moves closely, and making sure that your conquests are in line with your overall plan of attack.

I breathed a sigh of relief when your conclusion was that the choice (big vs. small) was a pretty balanced one, because that was definately the goal! Smaller provinces have a lot of inherent advantages that do make them rather attractive. In my mind, the two most crucial of these (there are certainly others!) are a) ease of loyalty control, which you perfectly explained in your post, and b) the income (and potential bonuses) you'll receive by claiming trade goods--further testing is definitely needed here, but one thing we may discover is that the bonuses for obtaining a monopoly position need a bit of tweaking to make them more powerful...this would have the indirect effect of boosting smaller provinces further, as they tend to have good resources even if they're lacking in burgeoning populations (and the main reason that Kell is the notable exception here has to do with the in-game stories...eventually, Kell will be the only place you can train Kellen warriors, which will be nigh on unstoppable military units...you'll probably never have many of these, but the ones you do have will be pure gold!). For the moment, however, it makes Kell a somewhat less attractive conquest option.

Another angle to look at when putting together an expansion strategy is to take stock of what resources you've got, and try to plan for an early monopoly position. I can think of three examples in particular, impacting two different factions, where this might be THE guiding factor that drives your expansion planning:

1) Castillar's strike against Massetta. A good mid-to-large sized province that will give you a wool monopoly out the gate. Small advantage early on, but one that will grow with your empire.

2) A Fury strike toward Rook's Roost (the only place with the "Fuel" resource, which gives you an insta-monopoly, and a nice cash haul with this sparsely populated province.

3) Again with Fury, an attack on Hlo'Haas as a spearhead toward Brom...another small province (the smallest in the game, actually), with a unique resource that will give you a big early cash windfall.

There are others that are less obvious to the eye, but these three make compelling cases, each in their way.

Another thing to note is that when we put maintenance costs back, they'll be a flat % of a province's income (level 1 buildings generally eat up 5% of a province's income), so the per turn costs will be higher for the larger provinces, but proportionally, the rates will be constant across all your provinces (and the next build introduces Markets as a means of boosting provincial income levels further, to help offset the cost of carrying those buildings).

One of the biggest changes in 1.1 will be the interconnecteditivity of Taverns, Shrines, and Sigils. Each of these buildings will impact the others (currently Taverns have no "neg" associated with them where shrines and sigils do, so they get a free ride in the current build), and with this change, the dynamic between your three resource types on the secondary layer becomes a good deal more interesting.

Aside: Gold and Pop are your primary layer resources (resources you get naturally, simply by owning a province). Manna, Influence, and Espionage Points are on the secondary layer, and require active participation on your part to begin gaining these.

Another interesting thing to point out is that you can build buildings and train troops at the same time in any province you control, so another advantage of small provinces is that they can begin a building (wiht the understanding that it'll take many turns for it to complete), use a festival to bounce loyalty back into the sweet spot range, then start some troop training. In the early game, you'll be hard pressed to do this with the larger provinces (which is sort of a drag for Mourngrym, especially, as he starts with the two of the most populous provinces in the game).

-=Vel=-

[JustinSane]

Thank you for your response! And I'm glad there weren't any glaring holes in my analysis .

The monopoly bonuses would certainly be quite useful, but as far as my testing indicates, the iron, wood and stone at least don't seem to do anything yet (which was rather disappointing to me in my first game when I based my strategy as the Mystics on capturing Thunder Hill, Elynthia, Misty Vale, Hidden Vale, and Willet who collectively give exactly 100 stone for cheaper sigils... didn't work). I've not checked on the other monopolies yet. So those are yet another reason to look forward to 1.1 .

It may be due to an inadequate appreciation of the utility of extortion, but with mutual offsets between taverns, shrines and sigils rather than just shrines and sigils, I'm not sure I'd ever build a tavern. Taverns are the least efficient at loyalty control (.1 loyalty gain/espionage point against .11 loyalty gain/mana and .2 loyalty gain/influence), and have no real direct military application (.0167 enemy military units eliminated/mana, .01 infantry built/influence, .025 one turn fortification hit/espionage point doesn't really compare). Now perhaps adding in a certain level of extortion income from taverns would tip the balance a bit back toward taverns, but it seems like there is sufficient gold to keep a constant infantry pump going from all one's provinces without that.

As an alternative to a three way offset between sigils, shrines and taverns, what about having barracks and taverns be an either/or proposition? This could be combined with having barracks eliminate the population hit for troop training that is coming in build 1.1 (which would tend to make barracks less appealing in any case). Then there would be sort of an interesting split between a shrine/barracks play style suited towards sustaining maximum troop production (with the shrines to overcome the larger continuous loyalty drain associated with the quicker training rates barracks provide) and a sigil/tavern play style. Just an idea .

I can see I wasn't clear at all on Kell - what I'd meant to imply was that Kell was a relatively high population province (24,329 starting) that also had a lot of goods (sum of 64, which is higher than any comparable province as far as I've noticed). With the coming addition of Kellen warriors, there will likely be quite a pushing match over control of that province - which is cool .

Oh, by the way: Are you still planning on increasing the cost of lightning storm? If so, and if you have time and do not mind, would you care to comment on the concerns about that I mentioned in the 1.1 notebook thread? You of course don't need to explain your design decisions to anyone, and I understand if you're too busy, but I'm just a bit curious there .

Great work so far and I can't wait to see what you're going to have in 1.1!

[Solver]

You people make my brain hurt, this stuff is well over my head

[Velociryx]

G'morning and good stuff re: the continuing analysis!

Taverns/Shrines/Sigils: One thing to keep in mind here is that on a fairly regular basis, all three of these will be getting "upgrades" in the form of regular additions to the missions available, and the hope is that there will be a constant "balance of power" between the three (rather akin to the struggle of the various color groups in magic the gathering). And, there are certain things that each group will do better than the others. The Church has a strong presence in the arena of preservation (and with that, loyalty control), while the Order of Mystics and their sigils are the masters of direct damage (both to troops and eventually to buildings), and the Masters of Espionage will excel at indirect damage, info gathering, and assassinations (when that is important). Right now, as I look at each group's "trump card" I would say that it is Binding Chant for the Church (which might need to become a hair more expensive), Lightning Storm for the Order, and in my head it's kind of a tossup between Extort and Sabotage for the Guild (Thieves Guild). I say this specifically because of the changes coming in 1.1, where the winter warfare penalties will kick in. Sieges will become harder in winter, and if you get stuck performing one, then Sabatoge will help extricate you from that particular danger much more quickly, and they're an excellent cheap way to consistently do damage in the field (faster sieges also mean that your provinces aren't hurting quite so much where loyalty is concerned, which makes conquering those big provinces a bit less daunting). But at the moment, I would have to agree...of the three, the Espionage folk could use the most boosting, and they're getting a couple of cool new abilities in 1.1 (including the ability to "lock down" the biggest enemy army, reducing its move points to zero..and the ability to find out just where that army is) *devious grin* Initially, I had thought to make a different building pairing (was actually going with Watch Tower/Tavern), but didn't like the results as much as the sigil/shrine/tavern triad, and given the interconnectedness of the secondary layer of resources, I thought it gave us a better end result to keep them as firmly enmeshed as possible.

Regarding the Lightning Storm - the goal is to do three things with that one. First, make some of the Order's other spell options more appealing by making LS slightly less appealing (compared to the others, LS is far and away the better choice just now, but to further decrease the costs of the others will have additional impacts, including mucking about with the ratios between the order-church-guild, so increasing LS is the easiest way to accomplish this part of the goal. Second thing is to introduce a new (cheaper, not in a per unit killed sense, but in a mana per casting sense) version of LS in the form of Zap!--where Zap! lacks the multi-kill option of its big brother, it guarantees a kill and can be used to good effect when you MUST kill a specific number of the enemy (best uses as I see it will be on garrisons guarding neutral provinces and on enemy siege crews to get the total number "below threshold" and make sieges impossible to complete. More a surgical tool to LS's broadsword. And third, we had some discussions here re: the power of LS in the early game and its ability to essentially neutralize or stall your expansion in the early game. Not based on the actions of one faction, but once you put a decent army together, all four of the enemy AI's have a chance of sniping you, and dealing with 4 different groups LS-ing you at once can make it difficult to "stay ahead of the troop training curve" in the opening stages of the game. This doesn't always happen of course, as the AI's frequently bust each other up too, but it was happening enough that a cost increase was probably in order...easy to offset once you get rolling, and saves the early game from being overly punishing. We won't go crazy on it tho.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Another interesting bit of discussion that ties in nicely with Justin's first post is the "window of safety."

In Civ, you have several turns in the early game where you don't have to fear barbarian attack. In CB, you have several turns where you don't have to worry about rebellions (12, to be precise).

This adds a bit of a twist to the discussions about what to do/build/plan for first, as it essentially gives you a free pass for your initial build/training decisions (in that you can almost certainly recover your loyalty from your initial build orders inside that twelve turn window), so what you choose to do in those early turns becomes even more important as its the one time in the game where you won't have to worry over rebellions.

-=Vel=-

[TCO]

Is it 6 years or 7 now?

How we doing on coders?

Shouldn't we be done now?

Why are we still dicking with design?

I was right...you all were wrong. Man up...and fess up.

[Velociryx]

I had originally added this to your post, but then thought better of it and posted it here, as a reply. This is the only time I'll say it, so pay attention. I don't know how other folks run their respective areas, and frankly, I don't care. Here, you will not post troll baits in topical threads. Do it again and I'll see to it that you get a vacation. If you have a problem with me, feel free to PM me. If you just want to hear yourself rant, pick another forum.

-=Vel=-

(and here was the original message):

EDIT By Velociryx: Wrong thread, sweetcheeks. I'm adding this to your post so as not to clutter up an on topic thread with more of your drivel. Take it elsewhere or take a vaction.

-=Vel=-

[JustinSane]

Thank you for the explanations on the second level resource balance and on the increased cost of lightning storm. As you say, it's way too early to get too concerned with exact balance between the three, since that will be a continuing work in progress. It sounds like right now espionage might be a little weak relative to the other two and that binding chant and lightning storm might be too obvious of choices relative to the other uses of mana and influence, so I can see where increasing the cost of those would be a good thing.

I've been doing some work on trying to refine Candle'Bre opening theory (I'm a chessplayer, and we probably spent 60% of our study time on opening theory, so that tends to be a part of a game I'm particularly interested in).

Your suggestions in the second post of this thread are of course all excellent. I've got a slightly more detailed analysis of how to begin as the Mystics that some may find interesting.

First, it is essential to understand the situation they start in. The Mystics have in many ways the worst starting position of any faction. The most immediately obvious is that their starting provinces are weak compared to their competitors. Loyalty is quite poor, with one province at 52 and the other at 49. The Furies by comparison average loyalty of 72, and the other 3 factions average right around 60. They've also got the lowest starting population of all factions, with only the Furies being anywhere close (and remember, the Furies have 40% higher morale). So starting off you can't train troops, you have the lowest income of any faction, and one of your provinces can't even build anything.

Those are the immediate tactical realities. Equally if not more important are the longer term strategic challenges you face. Excepting Mourngrym (who starts with twice your treasury and roughly three times your income), every other faction has a sheltered area for expansion away from enemies. For you, every province you take moves your borders closer to an opponent. Unfocused expansion can leave you fighting a very difficult multi-front battle against all 4 other factions (Mourngrym, the Furies and Castillar in the Northwest and the Council in the south). That's not fun.

More concretely, the Council of Seven starts at one province (Elynthia) of separation and will remain a constant threat that will pin you down and limit your freedom of action from roughly turn 15 to the time you or they are eliminated. They are the second front you can't afford in many cases.

So it makes a lot of sense to consider openings that allow you to quickly eliminate the Council. I've spent a lot of time developing different variations, and there are several that are viable, but here is one (with a branch fairly early between the faster, more direct option and a more conservative route) which seems to be quite reliable and safe.

The basic goal is to as rapidly as is feasible establish a military production rate (including mana for lightning storms) that the Council, overextended by expansion, will not be able to match. Then you break their standing army, take IronPort, and the rest of the empire falls in short order. If you can successfully absorb the Council while retaining a stable economy, you should be in a very comfortable position for the rest of the game.

Constant infantry production from the first three provinces is possible with loyalty just over 60 in each, but it will break even with production and festival costs to cover the loyalty hit included. If loyalty is higher, you can maintain constant infantry production while running at a profit.

Here are the specifics:

For the first several turns, the goal is to get loyalty in both your starting provinces over 80 (preferably closer to 90). So for the first 4-8 turns you're not going to be so much a monarch as a party planner . Turn one, festivals in both provinces. Then festivals immediately each time you accumulate 500 gold until both provinces are over 80. You may want to aim for over 90, though it is inefficient to hold festivals if provincial loyalty is 85 or greater, since the maximum is 100 and you lose the benefit if the festival rolls for instance +26.

Alright, it's somewhere from turn 4 to turn 8 or 9, depending on festival die rolls and random events, and we've got happy subjects. Now it's time to start an infantry pump. Build infantry continuously from both provinces, running festivals if either province's loyalty hits 82 or lower.

Now generally the Council will be quietly expanding in the south, but sometimes they get frisky and go for Vestford as their second expansion target (they always take Gloim first) and Misty Vale as their third. If they do this, wait until the Council army moves into Misty Vale, then move your army to Dasgardia watch Misty Vale's fortification counter. When it hits 3 or lower (4 if you want to be save), move in with all the infantry you've got. Worst case scenario is both armies wipe. Generally, you'll win (since they've lost troops invading two neutral provinces and two sieges while you've lost none) and can take over the siege. This is an ideal situation, in my most recent game this happened and I absorbed their entire empire by turn 40.

But in most cases, they'll expand south rather than north. In that case, you have two good options. First, the aggressive route:

Move your infantry to Maldev as soon as each is built, keep both provinces building continually and keep loyalty up, and wait until you have 14 infantry in Maldev. Then move into Elynthia. Keep infantry production up for the duration of the siege, with each new unit moving to the front. As soon as you take the province, cut infantry production and focus all income of festivals in Elynthia until morale is over 80. Then do another round of Festivals to bring morale up to around 90 or better in each province, and begin saving for Sigils.

As soon as you've got 1,500 gold, build a sigil in your least populous province. As soon as you get the next 1,500, the next least populous, then the last. Then you can either start the infantry pump back up in all three provinces, or go for another round or two of festivals if you want a more stable economy. Personally I prefer to just start the infantry pump straight away.

Once mana starts coming in, watch the Council army. As soon as it invades a province, storm it (this will slow the council's expansion and maximize losses, as if they drop below the critical mass due to the storm, then the provincial fortifications can take more out. As soon as each infantry unit is build, it needs to head to Elynthia. Note that those built in Dasgardia need to go to Maldev rather than try to move directly to Elynthia. Even though it looks like they should be able to go straight there, they'll go to Misty Vale instead if ordered to Elynthia and you'll lose the first 4 or so to neutral defenders. This is a timing push, so that's no good.

Eventually you'll build up around 1,800-2,400 infantry in Elynthia (you can move sooner if you know the Council doesn't have much of an army). When you have, it's time to move into IronPort. They will invariably have an intercession on the province, so either use a single infantry unit newly moved into the province to attack and get rid of the intercession, or split your army, then take the smallest part of the split and split that, and so on until you get down to a one unit army, then attack with that. Any mana you've got is used to storm the council army, then move in. If you've timed your attack well, the siege should be a success and the rest of the Council will fall quickly. Don't be afraid to divert all mana income into getting loyalty in IronPort up to a decent level after you take it, but use festivals on the other Council provinces. Ironport will generally have a shrine as well (and sometimes a tavern also), so use what you take to get the loyalty up as well.

After you've absorbed the Council: Profit . Basically, you can win at will. Building sigils is one thematic and fun way to go, but anything logical works.

I'll post the slower, more conservative method soon (and edit this sentence out ).

[Velociryx]

!

An excellent "blitz" opener to rid yourself of one of your near opponents! I like it (and will be curious to see if/how your strategy changes with 1.1!)

Looking forward to seeing the conservative methodology from you!

-=Vel=-

[JustinSane]

I'm curious to see how it will have to change with 1.1 as well (and a bit apprehensive honestly... not sure how that faction copes with a higher mana cost lightning storm as it's such an integral part of their play and the primary compensation for their terrible starting position.)

The risk of the aggressive method described above is that while you are almost certain to win the war with the Council, you risk falling quite a ways behind a runaway Castillar in province count. With the more conservative route, you take 4 neutral provinces rather than just 1, three of which are low pop high trade good provinces that will provide a nice, stable income of both gold and mana. It also leaves open the option of simply expanding into other neutral provinces rather than confronting the Council (though I personally don't prefer letting a thorn that obnoxious remain so close to the core of my territory).

Alright, the conservative approach branches off from the blitz method after you've gotten loyalty up in your two starting provinces and started the infantry pump. Rather than going for Elynthia and from there IronPort, this time our aim is to as rapidly as efficiently possible conquer, in order, the provinces of Vargalas, Hidden Vale, and Misty Vale. After a pause to consolidate the new territory and get sigils built in each of our five provinces, then we take Elynthia (and from there IronPort). Details as follows:

First, mass infantry in Dasgardia (rather than Maldev) until you've got 14, being careful to keep loyalty high in your original provinces (festival if loyalty in either hits 82). As soon as you've got 14, move into Vargalas. Keep up the infantry pump during the siege, moving each new unit into Vargalas. When you finally take it, if you have 14 infantry units left (including new recruits), move into Hidden Vale. If not, just keep pumping infantry until you've got 14 and move in then. Either way, run festivals in Vargalas each time you accumulate 500 gold without breaking infantry production. It's acceptable here (preferable actually) to let loyalty in your starting provinces fall to right around 60, as it is more important to raise loyalty in your new province enough to reduce the risk of rebellion.

Shortly you'll take Hidden Vale. Again, if you've got 14 infantry units, move into Misty Vale, and if not, as above, wait until you do, then move in. Have your starting provinces build one more infantry unit each, then stop production. Wait until Vargalas improves from the angry red face to the sad blue face, then shift festival spending to Hidden Vale (though you do need to keep loyalty in your two starting provinces at least above 60). Once you take Misty Vale, get the loyalty up there, then keep running festivals until all provinces have loyalty over 80.

Now it's time to build sigils in each province, starting from the lowest population province and moving up to the highest. There are two options as to how to do this. If you would rather have more money and delayed mana income, after you commission a sigil, get the loyalty in the province back up to 80 before starting the next province's sigil. If you'd rather apply pressure to the Council more quickly, just build the sigils as you go (though this will be a 25% drop in loyalty, and thus in tax revenue).

Once you've got 5 sigils merrily building along, it's time to start an infantry pump from all 5 provinces. Once you've got 14-16, move into Elynthia. Upon taking Elynthia, cut infantry production and get Elynthia's loyalty up to 80 asap with festivals, then build a sigil. Then start the infantry back up with now 6 provinces. As soon as you start building up mana, watch the Council armies and be alert for opportunities to storm them as they siege neutral or Mourngrym provinces. Wait till you've got a good sized army (unless you have reason to believe the Council forces are either weak or hopelessly out of position), then move into IronPort after using all available mana to storm their army. You may end up trading an army or two, but eventually they won't be able to match your military production and you will break through. Once you do, your mana production will be high enough to quickly stabilize IronPort, and your infantry pump will be producing enough units that you can probably split your army and siege two Council provinces at a time, resulting in a rapid conquest of the rest of their territory after IronPort falls. From there, again, win at will .

One additional variation is to build taverns in some or all of your provinces after building sigils everywhere and raising loyalty back up to 80 everywhere. This option gives you sabatoge and bread and circuses, but slows down direct military pressure on the council by enough that you're really not likely to break them with a particularly early attack. It will take a sustained effort (though you'll get through eventually). You can build an excellent economy while still maintaining production though, so that's something .

[Velociryx]

Love it, and the fact that you've outlined, with those two basic methodolgies, a number of hinted-at branches from the main theme. Despite their relatively weak starting position, the Order is well positioned, if played correctly, to really wreck some havoc on the other factions.

Regarding the coming changes in 1.1, don't feel too bad for the poor Mystics...they're getting their first series of "factional events" with the new build, and depending on what strategic choices you make when dealing with their historical events, you could wind up with quite an impressive stockpile of free mana, which will give them all sorts of options (of course, the hope is that the non-mana choices are compelling too, which should make the choices agonizing... )

One other thing comes to mind, and that is re: Extortion, as it relates to the big vs. small equation.

Targeting small provinces makes you a less likely candidate to have extortion used against you...not much gain for the espionage spent. Mourngrym will tend to suffer the most, as he starts with the two most economically valuable provinces in the game, which means that at least part of a mourngrym strategy has to revolve around countering this, or risking the loss of his major economic advantage (with a 30% income reduction on those big tax monster provinces, his income advantage doesn't dry up completely, but it suffers a big blow). This would be a good, inexpensive way for cash strapped factions (especially the Mystics) to offset their early game income woes, and I suspect would make for an intriguing opening variant. The good thing about it too is that if a Mystic player opted for the more conservative approach and targeted the Mourngryms first, rather than the Council, Taverns first could be the initial build, attack a bevy of low pop neutrals to help bolster income, further boosted via Extortions against Mourngrym, and that'd leave you flush with enough cash to fund your military adventures and build the more expensive Sigils. Plus, given the relatively poor income of your provinces individually, you're basically immune to the extortion treatment from your rivals. Well, not immune, but it'd take tremendously more effort to get serious money out of your provinces than it would for you to return the favor.

-=Vel=-

[JustinSane]

The problem I've found with extortion is that it is too easily overwritten by another faction's extortion. You can spend 180 espionage building up 30% extortion on one of Mourngrym's starting provinces, click end turn and see 10% extortion by the Furies having bumped your extortion out. If it were removable only by purge, it'd be a lot more valuable I think.

Targeting the Mourngrym first militarily I think would be a high degree of difficulty approach. You've got to have quite a stretched out empire and massing force in north shores for instance to attack eastgate risks a council counter punch into your home territory. I think taking enemies on one at a time is much simpler, and that pretty much requires dealing with the Council first. As a target for extortion, sure - the Mourngrym are quite good for that.

Edit: And I'm glad to here that faction events are coming to give them a boost. I'm really having trouble waiting for 1.1 .